fandomhigh | Applied Inventiontronics, Period 4

Entry tags:

invent

Applied Inventiontronics, Period 4 - Week 2

As students walk into class, they'd see Glitch standing behind his desk with notes in hand. They were mostly in his hands because the desk had a pile of Papay fruit on it next to the sign in sheet, free for the taking.

"Hello!" He seemed a lot less visibly nervous this time, which was probably a good thing. "Today's lesson is about power sources for inventions. A big part of even thinking up what you'll invent is deciding on how to make it go, and, well, there are a lot of options here."

Glitch looked down at his notes, then back at the class.

"One of my favorites to start with is wind-ups and clockwork. You turn the key or lever on the outside, and it winds a thin piece of metal, storing energy. When it un-winds, it turns gears that turn other gears that make a part of it move. There's also things that are powered by steam and heat, with turbine or piston engines, but they're a lot more difficult. And bigger, too. Using the force from water or wind to turn the gears can work on something big or small."

Another glance at his notes.

"Uhm, let's see... Electricity is a good one, so long as you take care to wire everything properly. Grounding yourself when you test it is a good idea, too." There might have been a slight shudder then, at the memory of some very unwelcome electric shock. "You can also use chemical reactions to power something, like that little drinking bird shaped doohickey. Wouldn't recommend that one unless you're already familiar with them. Chemicals, I mean." The clarification threw him off for a moment. Where was he? Oh, yes. "The last one I'll mention is magic. If there's a safe way you can find a way to make your invention work with that, then you're free to do so."

It took a few moments of shuffling the papers before Glitch got to the one he needed.

"Now, I know that a lot of people here come from different worlds, so today I'd like you to do two things. First, if there's a power source from where you come from that wasn't mentioned, share a little about it with the rest of the class and answer each other's questions about them. Second, make note of which ones you think you'd like to use in your invention. If you don't have an idea for that yet, then just take note of the ones that interest you."

He sat down at his Papay fruit covered desk and waited for the discussion to begin.

[ooc: ~~Wait for the~~ OCD is up, as usual!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I can show you diagrams now if you like," Willow said. "Only by 'now' I mean 'after' since we can do your other questions first. What kind of memories are we talking about? Human? Historical? Computer? Other?"

"Human," he clarified. "Well, sometimes. I guess human, though. Things don't really care about their memories."

"Let's say 'sentient' then," Willow suggested. "Now most of us store our memories in our brains, but I assume you have something else in mind?"

"Well, you can't really do something that would protect someone's head all the time," he said, looking unconsciously at Professor Ambrose, "so I thought perhaps something to store them in, some sort of... extra memory so that if yours got taken, you could put them back. Some things pick up memories, obviously, but never enough to be helpful."

"Well, if we're talking outside of the head there's all sorts of things you could try," Willow said. "First would be the regular ol' writing things down into a journal."

He shook his head now.

"That's just words. Those aren't memories."

There was an intrinsic difference between them, not one he could put words to, but it was there all the same. Words shaped the world, made it one thing or another if you were persuasive enough, but they weren't the world itself. They were representative and the bond between words and the world meant that you could manipulate one through the other. Memories were a very different beast indeed.

"So you're thinking more the whole thing?" Willow asked. "Like a full-on backup copy?"

"What use would it be otherwise?"

He shook that off and ducked his head.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. But anything other than--" how had she put it? "that is just information. It's not memory. Information is important, I'm sure. I've never had much but people seem to guard it jealously everywhere but here. But" and his eyes flicked to Professor Ambrose again "protecting a memory is what I'd like to do."

"I'd go with magic then," Willow said. "I mean maybe somebody has technology that's advanced enough, but I think magic would give you more options."

He startled at that notion.

"I don't have magic. I'm not the Witch, I can't do those things. And I've never seen magic help much of anything."

He was wrong on the first, right on the second, mostly wrong on the third, but the last one even he had to correct himself on.

"Well, mostly."

After all, he'd gotten rather fond of the broom.

Willow sighed and facepalmed. "Hookay," she said, sounding more resigned than annoyed. "What was it in your world? Centuries of winter? Turning people into toads? Whole buncha being a b-i-t-c-you know what?"

"I lived with her," was his reply. "That was quite enough."

"And again with 'hooookay'," Willow said. "Which is not to dispute or demean any trauma that you might have gone through so much as it is to say that stereotyping is a very ugly thing to do no matter who you're doing it about and how nasty the original example might have been."

"I'm sure there are other Witches who are perfectly sane and can pick up their crumbs after they've had a biscuit and woken the whole keep up with their banging about in the cupboards. I like Millie well enough, after all."

He paused, carefully.

"I just can't do it. I'm not magic. So I couldn't see how I could use it in my invention."

"You could ask a witch who'd be nice enough to help you," Willow said. "And some of us even make our own biscuits, let alone clean up after."

He blinked.

Well. That was unexpected.

"You're a witch?"

Because of his experience, all witches were sort of filed under Pink or Green.

...Willow was sort of defying that system.

Willow nodded.

"Ah."

"So, it would need to be magic then? Why?"

"None taken," Willow said with a bemused eyeroll. "And because I don't know of any non-magic way that does what you're asking for. Which isn't to say that it might not be out there, just that I don't know what it is."

"Well, memories get left in things all the time," he said matter-of-factly. "That's just normal. It's just that it's usually nothing useful or complete."

He tapped the desk she was sitting at.

"The desk holds a memory for everyone who's sat at it, but it's not exactly interesting or what someone would want to remember if their memories were taken. And that's only one thing."

He quirked and leaned on his elbows, letting his hands cup his jaw.

Edited 2008-01-14 16:46 (UTC)

"Uh-huh," Willow said. "And this is why we would want to use magic to store memories in something that was useful and complete. There may be magic items out there already that do this, or things that could pep the memories of another item up a bit."

"Do you know of one?" he asked. After all, if someone had already made it, he should probably turn his study to something else.

"Not offhand," Willow said. All things considered she decided to skip mentioning how the memory-related magic she could think of offhand was a spell to erase memories. "But you could try researching in the library, or asking other witches around school. Hermione is very smart, and Anathema knows a few things."

"I'll see if I can find either of them," he said, though he wasn't sure if he would. "But I might ask Professor Ambrose if there's some other way that he might know as well."

He scrubbed at his face with one hand.

"It's easy enough to pick up memories after all. Especially the big ones."

He shook his head to clear it as he was starting to get annoyed, and looked at the clock.

"I should let you work on your own invention. Thank you for your help, though. And I'll wait if you still want to show me those diagrams even ~~if you'd prefer it be handwavey~~ after I was, er, rude. And sorry for that."

He'd had it spinning around in his brain a bit since they'd crossed it and while he thought to himself that he hadn't said anything about witches in general, he'd slowly realized that she'd taken it that way. Hence the apology.

Edited 2008-01-14 17:05 (UTC)

"It's okay," Willow said. "I get how not all witches are nice ones. It's an uphill battle, but I'm happy to take it on. And I don't mind ~~handwavily~~ showing you graphs and all. Graph love must be shared."

Re: TA 1/14

new-to-liirness.livejournal.com - 2008-01-14 17:28 (UTC) - Expand

Re: TA 1/14

willbedone.livejournal.com - 2008-01-14 17:29 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only